This vivid color print shows the burning of the Church of Our Lady, the cathedral of Copenhagen, on the night of September 4–5, 1807, during the Anglo-Danish war of 1807–14. Britain initiated the war in August 1807, after the Danes refused to surrender their fleet, which the British feared would fall into the hands of Napoleonic France. The British landed troops on Danish soil and on September 2 began a three-day bombardment of the city. On the third night of the attack, the steeple of the cathedral was ...

In September 1807, early in the Anglo-Danish War of 1807–14, the British fleet bombarded the city of Copenhagen. Among the buildings struck was the Church of the Holy Trinity, which housed in its attic the University Library of Copenhagen. Some grenades fell through the roof, and this book belonging to the library was among those that were hit. Shown here are the bombed book and the grenade. The book is the first printed edition of, ironically, Defensor pacis (The defender of peace), a major work of medieval political philosophy ...

This view of Copenhagen harbor is the earliest known Danish aerial photograph. The picture was taken by Holger Damgaard (1870–1945), the first full-time press photographer in Denmark. Damgaard worked for the Danish newspaper Politiken from 1908 until 1940, where he documented a wide variety of events, places, and persons. Aerial photography goes back to the 1850s, when the first photographs were taken from balloons. The first photograph taken from an airplane was made in 1909, when the American aviation pioneer Wilbur Wright flew over Rome, carrying a passenger who ...

This Danish-language brochure, published in Copenhagen in 1911 or 1912, advertises two ships of the British-owned White Star Line, the Olympic and Titanic. Included are facts about the line and its fleet; information about tickets, timetables, and classes of service; and illustrations of the dining rooms, libraries, cabins, and decks. The brochure lists amenities available to second- and third-class passengers and shows the menus for the morning, midday, and evening meals offered on each of the seven days of the voyage across the Atlantic. The publication was aimed at people ...

This photochrome print is from the “Views of Architecture and Other Sites in Copenhagen, Denmark” section in the catalog of the Detroit Publishing Company. It shows Fredericksborg Castle as it appeared in the last decade of the 19th century. The 1892 edition of Baedeker’s Norway, Sweden, and Denmark: Handbook for Travellers offered the following information about the castle: “This palace was erected in 1602-20 by Christian IV in a plain and vigorous Renaissance style, on the site of an older building of Frederick II. The massive edifice, which consists ...

This photochrome print is from the “Views of Architecture and Other Sites in Copenhagen, Denmark” section in the catalog of the Detroit Publishing Company. It shows the Royal, or National Theater, which is identified in the 1892 edition of Baedeker’s Norway, Sweden, and Denmark: Handbook for Travellers as “a handsome Renaissance structure by Petersen and Dahlerup, built in 1872-74.” To the right and left of the entrance are bronze statues of the Danish poets Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754) and Adam Oehlenschläger (1779-1850). The theater is located on Kongens Nytorv (King ...

This photochrome print from circa 1890-1900 is from the “Views of Architecture and Other Sites in Copenhagen, Denmark” section in the catalog of the Detroit Publishing Company. It shows Our Savior’s Church (Vor Frelsers Kirke), a large baroque church in the Christianshavn district of the city, that was built in 1682-96. The church was constructed in a Palladian-Netherlandic style for King Christian V by the court builder, Lambert van Haven (1630-95). Lauritz de Thurah (1706-59) designed the spire, which was completed in 1752, more than 50 years after the ...

This photochrome from circa 1890-1900 is from the “Views of Architecture and Other Sites in Copenhagen, Denmark” section in the catalog of the Detroit Publishing Company. It shows the Eremitage Hunting Lodge in the Jaegersborg Deer Park near Klampenborg, Denmark, which was built in 1734-36 by King Christian VI for royal hunting dinners. The deer park was established in 1669 by King Frederik III as a private hunting reserve, and was opened to the public in 1756. The Detroit Photographic Company was launched as a photographic publishing firm in the ...

This photochrome from circa 1890-1900 is from the “Views of Architecture and Other Sites in Copenhagen, Denmark” section in the catalog of the Detroit Publishing Company. It shows the entrance to Tivoli Gardens, which opened in 1843, and is the second-oldest amusement park in the world (after Dyrehavsbakken, also in Denmark). The park was inspired by the romantic pleasure gardens of Europe, which were landscaped according to the naturalistic English tradition rather than the French style based on geometric lines. Tivoli's founder, Georg Carstensen (1812-57), had seen pleasure gardens ...